Thursday, July 05, 2007

The way it used to be . . . Do y'all know that song? Regina Belle. I don't know what got this song in my head. I think it was a box of Fruity Pebbles.

I saw Fruity Pebbles on sale at the supermarket. I know I liked this cereal as a kid. $2 a box on sale, can't pass that up. I went home, poured that stuff into a bowl with milk and started to eat it. It tastes terrible! It tasted like sugary pieces of cardboard, and the edges were all hard and jagged. And what's worse, they had the nerve to put this on the front of the box!

What the hell did it taste like before? And so Fruity Pebbles joined the ever-growing list of stuff that I could have sworn tasted good when I was a kid but now I realize is the lowest quality foodstuff available. This list now includes, among other things: Spaghetti-O's, Whoppers (the "chocolate"-covered malted milk balls), those giant red lips made of chewable and edible wax, and anything from Red Lobster.

Was stuff really getting worse, or were my tastebuds getting more refined? I didn't know, but it made me a little nostalgic. And that's probably what got me to thinking of that Regina Belle song. Which got me to thinking about music.

I could swear the music I hear on the radio is getting worse. I don't listen to the radio much anymore, but I should since I'd probably still like a song every now and then. As it is now, I live in a music vacuum. So I started downloading songs I used to like to see if they'd be as good or, if like the mushy flour rings with watery tomato juice on them that dares have the word "spaghetti" in its name, they had lost their charm. And the good news is, they hadn't!

Now, I'm not going to pretend that as a kid (or even now) I had sophisticated tastes in music. But I found myself still loving After 7 "Kickin' It", BBD "When Will I See You Smile Again?", Aaliyah "Age Ain't Nothin But A Number" (I try not to think what R. Kelly was doing to her 14 yo self that prompted that song), Troop "All I Do Is Think of You", Guy "Let's Chill", Tone Tony Toni "Whatever You Want", New Edition "Boys to Men", and Vesta "Congratulations" among many great others. The only real difference I noticed is a new sensation in the, um, loinal area when listening to Johnny Gill. He leads on "Boys to Men", and I also got "There You Go" by him from the Boomerang soundtrack. I don't think I felt this when I was 10. Well, not from Johnny singing. But now, yeah, it's pretty distinct. I think Johnny could just have his way with me (should he want it). Yeah, if he started singing to me like that, it wouldn't so much be a matter of me taking my panties off, so much as my panties simply disintegrating in nanoseconds. If you've ever wondered what it would look like for someone's panties to just evaporate off their body, find Johnny Gill and have him sing "There You Go" to me. It would be over. Resistance would be futile. This blog would no longer be rated PG-13.

But man, people can't have stopped making music I like. I'm just, for various reasons, not surrounded by as great a variety of the type of music I like as I used to be. So I turn to you, People. Help me find some good new music! Some more like the ones above, or D'Angelo, or Floetry. Gimme something good. And I'll give you something good (don't go there, PG-13, People!)

My first contest!

The rules are simple. Turn me on to a relatively current (say, released this decade) song I haven't heard before, even better an artist I haven't heard before, of a type I'd like as suggested by the groups and songs above. Give the artist and the song title. Each individual can give up to 3 songs. I'll chose the winner based on my favorite new songs.

And the prizes? What else, but yarn? Understand, I would not give you crap. It's just stuff that my tastes have changed from. First place winner gets their choice of these, the second place winner gets second choice and so on.

4 65 gram, 110 yard balls of self-striping single ply wool in black white and gray. It would make a cute felted purse.

One ball of Jaegger 50% wool 50% silk lace weight, 2 oz, 630 yards in a cranberry color. It is enough to make a lace scarf like this.

If you liked the socks I made in this post, you can make your own with this Elann house brand yarn. I originally bought 3 balls thinking I might make knee-highs. Since I only made anklets, I used just 1 ball and less than 1/5 of a second. The remainder could get you at least 3" cuff socks, or just go for some anklets like me.

Finally 2 balls of Elann Super Tweed, each 50 grams and 104 yards. I was going to make a hat or gloves with these, before I decided that I wasn't a big fan of coral colored yarns.

The contest will run until August 1st. Help me out, folks, and win some yarn!

Oh yeah, you know I dislike posting without knitting content. Here's the Lorelei I told you I was working on, being modeled by me at work with a crazy fake-looking smile.

Monday, July 02, 2007

I've been one blog-happy woman this past week, and this post brings you another FO! It's Coachella, and since I already described it over on the Coachella KAL page, I'm just going to (mostly) copy and paste the description like a punk. But let me just say first that Coachella is soo sexy, so hot. Damn, for real hot. Like, you know, where you say "damn!, that's hot" and you sing the "hot" in a long note falsetto? It's that kind of hot. Okay, here we go:

So I decided to make a night-time going out type of Coachella. It's always a little risky to go for the hand knits on an evening out, but I was willing to try it.

Turned out to be the fastest knit ever. The only wearable I knit faster was the thong, and I didn' hurt my hands at all, taking breaks and stretching every 15 minutes or so. CO Thursday night, finished Saturday morning, wore it out Saturday night. I estimate total knitting time was less than 10 hours.

I swatched 3 yarns for this. The first was Louisa Harding Glisten in black. It, like the called-for yarn, is a 100% nylon tape/ribbon type yarn, and it has shiny bits. I really wanted to use this yarn for this top, I had just the right amount in my stash. But after swatching, I saw that it is rather stiff and would not have good drape, and to get gauge (or anything above the ball recommended gauge) gives me open mesh that is see-through and looks like a fish net.

Then I tried Berroco Bonsai, which is a 97% bamboo 3% nylon yarn. The nylon is shiny and adds sparkle. If I had had this yarn in black or white or gold, I would have chosen it, but I had it in a sage type color and it's not really what I want for going out at night. I think I will make it again in this color and yarn for a day look. This yarn is very drapey and very suited to this pattern, I think.

I finally decided on using some Alchemy Synchronicity that I had in my stash, which is a single ply 50% silk 50% merino yarn. It will be warmer than the others, but that's not too much of a problem since it's for going out at night. It has a nice drape. The color is Pewter. I got this yarn at 66% off (otherwise, who can afford it?) and was sawing it for something else, but I guess I can manage to do the other thing with another stash yarn.

Also, for the neck roll part I held together a strand of Drops Glitter yarn, which is very fine at 10 grams giving over 700 yards. It is a metallic yarn that adds a little sparkle. I'm going to copy the modifications I saw in someone else's Coachella and do arm edging as well, and I will hold the sparkly yarn for that edging, too.

I knit the smallest size even though I am the 2nd smallest size because from washing my gauge swatch (really, swatching and washing your swatch is worth the knowledge, people) I knew this yarn loosened up a bit after washing. I'm glad I did this, otherwise the drape would have been too much for me. As it was my bra sometimes showed. I wore it with a strapless bra, and in fact sometimes you could see the top of the band in the back armholes area. I saw it in some of the pictures I took, and had to readjust things so it wouldn't show. I don't know what to do about this, as the armholes were already as tight as could comfortably be. I have to say that I don't really think this top works super well with a bra, only if the top sits just right and doesn't move around too much. Oh, I'd also do fewer increases towards the bottom, as it puckers there as it is now. Anyway, here it is:

That's the thing about summer knits. Some people don't like summer knits, but I love them. No sleeves! You get done so fast.